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Square Enix's insane sales targets for Tomb Raider, Hitman, & Sleeping Dogs revealed
- Thread starter Road
- Start date
Net_Wrecker
Member
5 million for Hitman? 6 million for Tomb Raider? What were they thinking?
Every publisher hoping they have a GTA, Assassin's Creed, or Call of Duty is going to kill "AAA" gaming. Ridiculous expectations.
Every publisher hoping they have a GTA, Assassin's Creed, or Call of Duty is going to kill "AAA" gaming. Ridiculous expectations.
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
I don't know if that Conan Video Game review helped Hitman or Hurt it
It sure was a fucking classic
It sure was a fucking classic
I'm having a hard time believing this.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
Sleeping Dogs has a ton of DLC.
Those Hitman targets are not borderline, they are flat out lunatic. Hell, has any video game in the history of forever spontaneously double like that between releases?
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
DLC's have their own budgets too, you know
It wasn't like content ripped out from Sleeping Dogs and sold piecemeal
JacksUsername
Member
Wow, talk about a company setting itself up for failure.
Yes, but they're extremely rare.
Think Call of Duty 4 or Bad Company 2 for examples however.
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Assassin Creed III?
It sold like 12 Million copies, I know Revelations didn't sell that much or even half that
I still have no clue how the fuck they hit 12Mil
(If I'm mistaken with the # I apologize in advance, but I think that is what it was up to)
4-5 Year Game development for all 3 titles?
Wat?
I think SE saw Deus Ex HR perform well and maybe surprised them and they though they could catch lightning in a bottle thrice, also known as the Nintendo way
Funny enough it's probably the worst game I've played in the last 9 months. It deserves...almost as much failure as Hitman does.
Assassin's Creed 1 did do 9 million and AC2 did 10 million though.
That said, I think the 12 million was still ahead of expectations since Ubisoft is sane.
GTA III, Mario Kart Wii, and CoD4 did far better than double, I believe.
Certainly not something to count on. GTA III did it buy being something completely new. Mario Kart Wii did it by being on the most successful Nintendo console. CoD 4 is probably an example of what they were hoping for, a lightning in a bottle type occurence.
Okay here are the previous sales for the franchises. Were I to make expectations for my financial projections, I would probably - at most optimistic - add one million to the previous entry.
How did Human Revolution do?
-Pyromaniac-
Member
5 million for hitman? That alone tells me that square-enix is operating in a fucking bubble rather than reality. No one, literally no one, not a single person on the planet fucking earth other than them would think that.
Chasing those FUSE numbers. A pipe dream.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
Yeah, but month after month with micro expansions?
They didn't seem to flop.
Hell, even United Front sounded happy...
Eidos sounds happy also...
Square Japan in another hand...
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Yeah but Brotherhood and Revelations started the downward trend/cycle
Usually there's a slight bump from a decline on a refresh for the franchise, III was a fucking Moonshot!
Unspeakable Evil
Member
No wonder I keep seeing Tomb Raider ads. Really trying to cross that 1.6.
A dramatic shift of tone from the resignation thread...
"I liked these games and they sold well at bomba price, they weren't the problem! [Something about Final Fantasy]"
I only played Tomb Raider a bit but from what I had seen of all three it was very clear the budget that went into these games had to be relatively high, though they did skimp out on the full Sleeping Dogs budget, I wonder if that's why it was lowest.
"I liked these games and they sold well at bomba price, they weren't the problem! [Something about Final Fantasy]"
I only played Tomb Raider a bit but from what I had seen of all three it was very clear the budget that went into these games had to be relatively high, though they did skimp out on the full Sleeping Dogs budget, I wonder if that's why it was lowest.
Now I'm intrigued by the numbers that Square-Enix expect for Lightning Returns. lol
I still stand by what I said.
Even if you didn't like it, CD put a TON of work and care into Tomb Raider. It in no way deserved failure of any kind. Not to mention a lot of people loved it.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
I still stand by what I said.
What was the last bomba that had a ton of DLC a year after is realese?
So they were hoping that every game would more or less double the previous games sales. What were they smoking? Did the success of DXHR(which according to that chart did do just that) go to their heads? I am hoping this is more of a "we would like to hit" then "we have to hit" kind of thing. It seems foolish to count on a game doing twice as good as its predecessor. Even more so when it has been many years between games in some cases.
Maybe they were expecting similar jumps for their other IPs, but it's a lot easier to add a million than it is 2-3 million. Especially when Deus Ex comes after Bioshock was pretty popular AND is serving an underserved audience (especially considering the direction Bioshock Infinite took) while being in better shape on consoles than prior entries.
Incidentally, I was going to mention MM2 as possibly a game that had such an explosive jump over the prequel, and last I checked that was 2 million.
Well, I haven't played TR but arguably even if you put a lot of effort into something, if it's just more of the same as before than it probably doesn't really deserve wild success on that alone. Not that I'll find out until it's $10 in a Steam sale or whatever.
By the way, does it have a lot of wave based enemy encounter design? After Bioshock Infinite I'm sort of sick of that now.
XANDER CAGE
Member
You say this as if people putting a lot of work and care into a thing they're working on is rare.
I feel they need to fire a lot more people than Wada at the top.
kunonabi
Member
care and effort doesn't mean much if the end product is rubbish.
I really don't care how much work they put into making a game that almost plays itself. We like to talk about how much we want AAA games to change, well the change only has a chance of happening if these games bomb. Even if it's a small chance.
Seriously, Wada was undoubtedly at least somewhat problematic but it takes more than one person to make these kinds of fuckups.
Yeah, seconding this. Unfortunately there must be sacrificial lambs if we're to see change there, though at this rate it looks like we need a mountain of them for them to take the hint.
... No wonder so many studios have been shutting down as of late. :/
I don't think any of us have a clear idea of who, and most likely if we're to just pick names that've shown up a lot we'd be getting the wrong people. There's people up there that are making these estimates on what the games will sell it, and they seem to grossly overestimate many games no matter how unrealistic expectations are, just look at my example of Chrono Trigger. That was underwhelming for them IIRC, and that sold HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of copies. That's really damn good for a PORT period, nevermind a SNES port on DS around when piracy was starting to go wild.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
who? Out of curiosity.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
I thought the game was fantastic.
100% worth it for Olga Kurylenko.
YES.
Anyone who had a fair share of impact into their pit of despair direction, and definitely their financial planners on the consumer games sections.
Putting in the same people minus the public face isn't going to help.
Their board consists of their high end Japanese executives, so if they just put those people back under a different person, it's going to be the same lunacy.
Bringing new management make every job below it less safe. The firings will come, I think.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
There seems to be a lot of half truths making rounds in the top of that company.
shinobi602
Member
IdreamofHIME
Member
I said it in another thread, but who the hell are the analysts that are telling them these games can move that many copies?
You could take a free poll on gaf and get a better idea how these games would have done than the crazy salary some mystic soothsayer has swindled Squeenix for these ridiculous numbers.
You could take a free poll on gaf and get a better idea how these games would have done than the crazy salary some mystic soothsayer has swindled Squeenix for these ridiculous numbers.